Getting sample tests and working with skill builders like this book can help you in many ways. You will get used to the kind of questions you will be asked and the level of difficulty of those questions. You will also become familiar with the format and comfortable with the length of the exam. Handling Test Stress Test anxiety is like the common cold. Most people suffer from it periodically. It won’t kill you, but it can make your life miserable for several days. Like a cold, test anxiety can be mild or severe. You may just feel an underlying nervousness about the upcoming exam. Or you may be nearly paralyzed with worry, especially if there’s a lot riding on the exam. Whatever the case, if you have test anxiety, you need to deal with it. Fortunately, there are many strategies to help prevent and treat test anxiety. PREVENTION The best “cure” for test anxiety is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Test anxiety is often caused by a lack of preparation. If you learn all you can about the test and create and follow a study plan, you should be in good shape when it comes to exam time. Here are some other, more general strategies: ■ Establish and stick to a routine. Routines help us feel more comfortable and in control. Whenever pos- sible, study at the same time and in the same place. Make your test preparation a habit that’s hard to break. Studying for the TOEFL exam will become easier as it becomes routine. You will be more likely to avoid distractions, and others will know not to disturb you during your TOEFL exam time. Set rou- tines for other aspects of your life, too, such as exercise and paying the bills. ■ Keep your general stress level low. If there are a lot of other stresses in your life, chances are a big test will make those other stresses seem more difficult to manage. Remember to keep things in perspective. If something is beyond your control, don’t waste your energy worrying about it. Instead, think of how you can handle what is in your control. ■ Stay confident. Remind yourself that you are smart and capable. You can take this test—and you can do well on it. Remember, you know more today than you did yesterday. ■ Stay healthy. When your body is run down or ill, your brainpower will suffer, too. And you are much more likely to be overtaken by worries. Take care of yourself throughout the test preparation process. (See more information on page 18.) TREATMENT If it’s too late to prevent test anxiety, don’t panic. You can still treat it effectively. Here are some strategies to help reduce test stress: ■ Face your fears. Admit that you are worried about the test and examine the reasons why. Your fears won’t change the fact that you have to take the test, but they can paralyze you and keep you from study- – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 16 ing and doing well on the exam. Acknowledge your fears, put them in perspective, and refuse to let your fears hurt you. One very helpful strategy is to write your fears down. When you put your worries on paper, they often seem more manageable than when they are bouncing around in your brain and keeping you up at night. Once you write down your fears, you can then brainstorm solutions. For example, imagine you are wor- ried about not being able to find enough time to get your work done and finish studying. Once you put this fear down on paper, you can begin to figure out how to squeeze in the hours you will need to get every- thing done. And you will feel more in control. ■ Keep things in perspective. Yes, the TOEFL exam is a big deal; it’s an important test. But even if you do poorly on the test, is it the end of the world? Will your family stop loving you? Will you be less of a per- son? Of course not. Perspective is very important to performance. Of course you should be serious about succeeding. But don’t lose sight of other important aspects of your life. ■ Be sufficiently prepared. Anxiety often comes from feeling insecure in a new situation. But if you pre- pare well, using this and other books, the TOEFL exam will not be new to you. And if you follow your study plan, you will know how to answer the questions you will face on the exam. If you have fallen behind, remember that it’s not too late to catch up. ■ Stop making excuses. Excuses may give you some comfort in the short term, but they don’t take away test anxiety—and they won’t help you do well on the exam. In fact, excuses often make things worse by making you feel guilty and powerless. Don’t let yourself feel like a victim. You may have a lot of things going on in your life and many things may interfere with your studies. But you have the power to choose how you deal with your circumstances. ■ Imagine yourself succeeding. Highly successful people will often tell you that one of their secrets is visualization. In their mind’s eye, they see themselves succeeding. They imagine the situations they will face, and they imagine themselves handling those situations beautifully. Visualization is a very powerful tool. It’s a way of telling yourself that you believe you can do it. The power of this kind of belief is staggering. If you believe you can accomplish something, you are far more likely to accomplish it. Likewise, if you believe you can’t do something, you are far more likely to fail to achieve that goal. Positive visualization will make it easier for you to study and manage your entire test preparation process. Anyone can use the power of visualization. Picture yourself sitting calmly through the exam, answer- ing one question after another correctly. See yourself getting excellent test results in the mail. Imagine yourself telling family and friends how well you did on the exam. Picture yourself receiving the college acceptance letter or job offer you desire. ■ Stick to your study plan. Test anxiety can paralyze you if you let it. And before you know it, you have missed several deadlines on your study plan. Guess what? That will only make your test anxiety worse. As soon as you feel your stomach start to flutter with test anxiety, go back to your study plan. Make an extra effort to stick to your schedule. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 17 Be Healthy It’s difficult to do your best on a test when you are not feeling well. Your mind and body need to be in good shape for the test. If you let your body get run down, you may become ill. That, in turn, will set you back on your study schedule. And that may lead to test anxiety, which can make you feel run down again. This is a downward spiral you need to avoid. If you do feel run down, take a day or two to rest and feel better. Maybe you will be two days behind your study schedule, but when you continue, your studying will be more effec- tive. As long as it’s not a constant problem for you and as long as you are not using illness to avoid studying, you will do yourself a favor by resting. Take good care of yourself throughout the entire test preparation process and especially in the week before the exam. Here are some specific suggestions for staying healthy: 1. Get enough rest. Some of us need eight or more hours of sleep each night. Others are happy with just five or six. You know what your body needs for you to feel clear-headed and energized. Make sleep a priority so that you are able to concentrate the day of the exam. If you have trouble sleeping, try one of the following strategies: ■ Get exercise during the day. A tired body will demand more sleep. ■ Get up and study. If you study in the night when you can’t sleep, you can cut out study time from the next day so you can take a nap or get to bed earlier. (Of course, sometimes studying will help you fall asleep in the first place.) ■ Relax with a hot bath, a good book (in English), or sleep-inducing foods. A glass of warm milk, for example, may help you fall back asleep. ■ Do some gentle stretching or seated forward bends. Try to touch your toes with your legs out- stretched. This is a relaxing posture. Or, practice a few relaxation poses from yoga: child’s pose, corpse pose, or cat stretch (see a good website like www.yoga.com for details). ■ Spend a few minutes doing deep breathing. Fill your lungs slowly and completely. Hold for a few seconds and then release slowly and completely. You can practice deep breathing any time you need to relax or regain focus. ■ Write down your worries. Again, putting your fears on paper can help make them more manage- able. 2. Eat well. Keeping a healthy diet is often as hard as getting enough rest when you are busy preparing for a test. But how you eat can have a tremendous impact on how you study and how you perform on the exam. You may think you are saving time by eating fast food instead of cooking a healthy meal. But in reality, you are depriving your body of the nutrition it needs to be at its best. You may think that a couple extra cups of coffee a day are a good thing because you can stay up later and study. But in real- ity, you are “tricking” your brain into thinking that it’s awake and making yourself more dependent on caffeine. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 18 Foods to avoid—especially at test-time—include high-sugar, high-calorie, low-nutrition foods, such as donuts, chips, and cookies. Instead, find healthy substitutes such as the following: INSTEAD OF . . . EAT . . . donuts low-sugar, multi-grain cereal chips carrot sticks cookies natural granola bar ice cream low-fat yogurt sugary soda fresh squeezed fruit juice giant-sized coffee green tea 3. Get exercise. You hardly have the time to study, so how can you find the time to exercise? As difficult as it may be, it’s important to squeeze exercise into your busy schedule. Even light exercise, such as a brisk walk to the store, can dramatically improve your brainpower. For one thing, exercising can help you clear your head, especially if you are preoccupied with many things and need to get focused on your work. For another, if you exercise, you will have more energy during the day and sleep better at night. That means all of your study time will be more productive. In addition, your exercise time can actually double as study time. For example, you can review material while you are riding an exercise bike. You can go through verb conjugations while you are race-walking around the park. If you exercise with a partner, you can practice your English speaking and listening skills. You can watch TV in English while you run on the treadmill. And here’s another bonus: exercise helps relieve stress. So especially if you are dealing with test anxiety, make exercise a priority. Multiple-Choice Test Strategies Multiple-choice is the most popular question format for standardized tests like the TOEFL exam. Under- standably so: Multiple-choice questions are easy and fast to grade. They are also popular because they are gen- erally considered objective. They are questions based solely on information and don’t allow the test taker to express opinions. Multiple-choice questions have three parts: Stem: the question Options: the answer choices Distracters: the incorrect answers Stem: By “It’s raining cats and dogs,” the man probably means Options: a) It’s been a long time since it rained. b) It is raining heavily. c) He needs an umbrella. d) His pets are out of control. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 19 In this question, the correct answer is b. The other options are all distracters. Here are some strategies to help you answer multiple-choice questions correctly: 1. Circle or underline key words in the stem. These are the words that help you search for the correct answer. For example, in the stem: The modern bicycle has all of the following safety features except the key words are “modern,”“safety features” and “except.” You need to look in the passage for the safety features of modern bicycles. And you need to find the answer that is not specifically mentioned in the passage. 2. Immediately cross out all answers you know are incorrect. This will help you find the correct answer. It is an especially important step if you have to guess at the answer. 3. Beware of distracter techniques. Test developers will often put in look-alike options, easily confused options, and silly options. For example, in the “raining cats and dogs” example, choice c may be true according to the passage, but it doesn’t give the meaning of the idiom as asked in the stem. Therefore it is the wrong choice. Choice d is the silliest option and is the one you should probably eliminate first. Even if you don’t know the meaning of the idiom, you should have realized that it is an idiom and that the cats and dogs are not real; it is a figure of speech. Still, if you did choose this option, don’t despair. Just read more carefully next time and be aware that some choices can be tricky. 4. Read stems carefully to be sure you understand exactly what is being asked. Watch for tricky wording such as “All of the following are true except.” You will find distracters that are accurate and may sound right but do not apply to that stem. For example, if you don’t notice the “except” on the bicycle ques- tion stem, you might choose a distracter that is a safety feature of the modern bicycle. The answer would be accurate but wrong because you did not read the question carefully. 5. Beware of absolutes. Read carefully any stem that includes words like always, never, none or all. An answer may sound perfectly correct and the general principal may be correct. However, it may not be true in all circumstances. Almost There: Strategies for the Final Days Before the Exam Your months of preparation will soon pay off. You have worked hard, and the test is just a week or two away. Here are some tips for making sure things go smoothly in the home stretch. The week before the test: ■ Be sure you know exactly where you are taking the test. Get detailed directions. Take a practice drive so you know exactly how long it will take you to get there. ■ Review everything you have learned. ■ Get quality sleep each night. ■ Practice visualization—see yourself performing well on the TOEFL exam. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 20 The day before the test: ■ Get to bed early. ■ Get light exercise. Don’t work out too hard. You don’t want to be sore or physically exhausted the day of the exam. ■ Get everything you will need ready: pencils/pens, admission materials/documentation, any mints or snacks you’d like to have along. ■ Make a list of everything you need to bring so you don’t forget anything in the morning. The day of the test: ■ Get up early. Make sure you set your alarm. Ask a family member or friend to make sure you are up on time. ■ Eat a light, healthy breakfast, such as yogurt and granola or a low-fat, low-sugar cereal and fruit. ■ Dress comfortably. Wear layers so that you can take off a shirt or sweater if you are too warm in the test room. ■ Don’t drastically alter your diet. For example, if you drink coffee every morning, don’t skip it—you could get a headache. However, don’t go for that second cup or super-sized portion. Too much caffeine can make you jittery during the exam, and you can “crash” when the caffeine wears off. At the test site: ■ Chat with others, but not about the test. That might only make you more nervous. ■ Think positive. Remember, you are prepared. IF you aren’t sure about the answer to a multiple-choice question, should you guess? In most cases, yes. The general rule of thumb is this: Guess if you can eliminate at least one answer. Multiple-choice questions usually have four or five options, only one of which is right. That gives you a 20–25% chance of guessing correctly. If you have four options and eliminate one distracter, that increases your chances to 33%. If you eliminate two distracters, you have a 50/50 chance of getting the right answer. Those odds are worth taking a risk, even if you receive a slight penalty for an incorrect answer. On the computer-based TOEFL exam, your score will be lowered by random guessing. Only guess if you have eliminated at least one distracter. On the supplemental paper-based TOEFL exam, however, you should guess even if you can’t eliminate one or more distracters. On the paper test, your score is based on the number of questions you answer correctly. There is no penalty for answering a question incorrectly. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 21 Should You Guess? . study plan. Make an extra effort to stick to your schedule. – HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE TOEFL ® EXAM– 17 Be Healthy It’s difficult to do your best on a test when you are not feeling well. Your mind and